Hydrogen fermentation of organic municipal wastes

Abstract

Hydrogen gas is recognized as a promising energy resource in the future. Microbial hydrogen fermentation would be an attractive process for hydrogen recovery. In particular, hydrogen production using fermentative bacteria has some advantages such as a high rate of hydrogen production without light. In this study, the hydrogen production from organic wastes was investigated using batch experiments. Bean curd manufacturing waste, rice bran and wheat bran were used as the organic wastes. The effects of solid concentration on the hydrogen production potential and the characteristics of substrate decomposition were investigated. The percentages of hydrogen in the produced gas were between 54–78%, 43–68% and 42–72% for bean curd manufacturing waste, ricebran and wheat bran, respectively. The hydrogen production potentials of bean curd manufacturing waste, rice bran and wheat bran were 14–21, 31–61 and 10–43 ml.g VS−1, respectively. The hydrogen yields from carbohydrate degradation were 2.54, 1.29 and 1.73 mol of H2 mol−1 of hexose for bean curd manufacturing waste, rice bran and wheat bran, respectively. The carbohydrate was rapidly consumed just after inoculation. On the other hand, soluble protein was hardly degraded for each substrate, indicating that carbohydrate was the main source of the hydrogen production.

Biohydrogen Production from Co-Digestion of High Carbohydrate Containing Food Waste and Combined Primary and Secondary Sewage Sludge

“…These wastes are complimentary for biological hydrogen production. FW collected from dining hall contains a variety of beans and vegetables like rice, wheat bran, potatoes, pulse, cabbage, beans and peas [18][19]23,29]. The maximum content of carbohydrates makes FW an auxiliary feedstock for the production of biohydrogen.…”

“…Co-digestion of FW with sewage sludge produces biohydrogen because FW and SS were known as necessary and auxiliary substrate for hydrogen production. Some experimental results were reported using food waste [13,[18][19][20], waste activated sludge [21][22], municipal solid waste [18,[23][24][25]. FW is suitable for the production of hydrogen as it is rich in carbohydrate and hydrolyzable waste [26].…”

Laboratory studies of rice bran as a carbon source to stimulate indigenous microorganisms in oil reservoirs

“…As market prices of carbohydrates are rising, finding an economical carbon source has been a significant motivation. Rice bran, as an abundant agricultural by-product, has been used to prepare culture media for enzymatic solid-state fermentations (Ng et al 2010;Noike and Mizuno 2000;Tanaka et al 2006). However, it has not been investigated as a biosimulator to promote IMEOR.…”

Hydrogen Fermentation of Cow Manure Mixed with Food Waste

“…Hydrogen is a clean energy carrier which produces only electricity and water when it is used with fuel cells. Anaerobic digestion to produce hydrogen, known as hydrogen fermentation, has been studied using various organic wastes, such as sugary wastewater 11 , bean curd manufacturing waste 5 , a wheat starch coproduct 3 , palm oil mill effluent 1 , food wastes 7 , and cow manure 14,15 . Wastewater treated by hydrogen fermentation can be re-used as feedstock for methane fermentation, because volatile fatty acids (VFAs) produced by hydrogen fermentation serve as substrates for methane production.…”